All it takes is a few testing sites that look like the BBC footage of PCR tests cross contaminating each other. If the virus aerosolizes easily, then it spreads in a lab and - boom - all the tests are positive.
One dirty lab could account for all of this. Without an open society machines get less maintenance, fewer people check on things in person, and obvious problems go unresolved.
Positive tests are not cases. As I stopped arguing with dave, asymptomatic positives should not to be considered in population prevalence, they may not be illnesses. Despite how some want to minimize IFR estimate.
The US started out trying to save the ICU system, quickly became zero covid, which quickly became zero positives from hyper sensitive tests. PCR at high Ct done randomly might show snap shot prevalence including old cases with fragment RNA, but I worry fragment RNA might be other than SARS CoV 2.
Michigan has begun a down turn of positives, seasonality effects the hyper sensitive tests too!.
Minor observation: 30 month old grand daughter sent home from day care went to Pediatrician: positive flu, in north Boston suburb.
Hope it means SARS CoV 2 viral interference is waning.
Anecdotally from Michigan, the public testing place near our home (that would be people who just show up voluntarily to be tested) has not seen a lot of traffic lately, which would (anecdotally) support your point that it isn't symptomatic people causing the surge.
However on the flip side, a doctor friend who works in a local hospital says the surge does seem real to him, that patients hospitalized with COVID are actually sick because of COVID. Well, there's two anecdotes, for what it's worth.
We do test all student athletes. (Used to be that winter sports were banned, but Gretchen gave in to a lawsuit and she’s clawing back by forcing mandatory testing—also mask use during play. Unlike our neighbors.
Also we have fewer cumulative cases per capita than our neighbors—thanks to zero Covid pursuits over the winter including restaurant shutdowns. We are now catching up to our neighbors on this metric.
Link to their weekly data and modeling slide decks. I think the U-M modeling is ridiculous but a lot of that data is enlightening.
I live in Michigan and have been tracking our data all year. At this point, my best theory is that the virus is legitimately spreading but it's not anything to worry about (Your CLI vs Positive Test analysis is spot on). My best guess is that ER detections (hospital admission %) are probably the closest thing we have to measuring the infection rate of the general populous. The % positive test rate is inflated by contact tracing / symptomatic testing (most people don't get tested weekly). CLI is only ~1% of all admissions, so the stated hospitalization rate is likely from people that came in for other reasons, which seems like it should be a pretty random sample of the general population.
In-person classes, School sports, and COVID fatigue all mean that previously under-exposed demographics did change behavior after the Christmas holiday. I've had two guys in my department (both about age 30) and my dad (age 55) get sick in this wave. The two (single) guys in my department were both COVID faithful before Christmas and I guess had started to see people in person because it's really not feasible to go a year without seeing anyone ("lockdown" policy isn't sustainable, so effective or not, it's bad long-term policy). There's been a bunch of symptomatic cases in people from my office (all working at home) in the last month. 10x any of the previous waves. I have every anecdotal reason to think there was a legitimate widespread change in infection rate in March.
Best I can figure is the people crossing the Ohio or Indiana state line were a minority for a long time, and Ohio/Indiana have been far more open far longer and the younger demographics in those states were sufficiently exposed in earlier waves. Whatever seasonal stimulus has driven the March wave (also observed in even more restricted Ontario) didn't have the same impact on Ohio / Indiana because actual previous exposure rates are far higher then known "cases." The Michigan southern border counties are actually lighter then their immediate northern neighbors which might suggest that some regular contact with Indiana/Ohio residents did increase exposure rates and provide better outcomes in this "wave."
The only outlier to that theory is Downriver (Monroe) vs Toledo.
It would be interesting to see the same ratios from neighboring states. Also, is there anything notable in the identical pattern occurring during the winter surge? I guess it does look like ICU C19 occupancy at least rose in lockstep during that time period.
I think this pandemic will go down in history as the time the empirical scientists (with their chaotic measurements) overwhelmed the theoretical scientists with hysterical data. We need the calm pipe-smoking armchair thinkers to get back control. What's the difference between an experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist, and an engineer? The experimental physicist prods nature with a stick to see how it will behave. The theoretical physicist proposes a hypothesis of why nature behaved that way when you prodded it with a stick. The engineer builds a bigger stick.
Happen be in upstate michigan right now. North of Traverse City. Was hoping before I arrived that it would not be masker world. No, it is full-on masker world. Even outside. Very disappointing.
Ct threshold didn't change in MI? I think it changed in Jan for most states, but maybe no MI? i'm still not 100% sure it changed at all. It is so hard to figure out what is going on with Ct levels.
I agree that Michigan is quite an outlier. However, there has been some leak through to Northwest Ohio. You can see it when you look at Region 1 of the Ohio Hospital Association's hospital census data. Region 1 (Northwest Ohio) has experienced a much sharper rise than other regions over the last month or so, like a muted version of what Michigan experienced. https://ohiohospitals.org/covid19data
This reminds of when the western wildfires stopped exactly at the US border with Canada. The fires that were supposedly caused by climate change just stopped at the nationally boundary...
All it takes is a few testing sites that look like the BBC footage of PCR tests cross contaminating each other. If the virus aerosolizes easily, then it spreads in a lab and - boom - all the tests are positive.
One dirty lab could account for all of this. Without an open society machines get less maintenance, fewer people check on things in person, and obvious problems go unresolved.
Positive tests are not cases. As I stopped arguing with dave, asymptomatic positives should not to be considered in population prevalence, they may not be illnesses. Despite how some want to minimize IFR estimate.
The US started out trying to save the ICU system, quickly became zero covid, which quickly became zero positives from hyper sensitive tests. PCR at high Ct done randomly might show snap shot prevalence including old cases with fragment RNA, but I worry fragment RNA might be other than SARS CoV 2.
Michigan has begun a down turn of positives, seasonality effects the hyper sensitive tests too!.
Minor observation: 30 month old grand daughter sent home from day care went to Pediatrician: positive flu, in north Boston suburb.
Hope it means SARS CoV 2 viral interference is waning.
Anecdotally from Michigan, the public testing place near our home (that would be people who just show up voluntarily to be tested) has not seen a lot of traffic lately, which would (anecdotally) support your point that it isn't symptomatic people causing the surge.
However on the flip side, a doctor friend who works in a local hospital says the surge does seem real to him, that patients hospitalized with COVID are actually sick because of COVID. Well, there's two anecdotes, for what it's worth.
Is the ratio different for other states?
We do test all student athletes. (Used to be that winter sports were banned, but Gretchen gave in to a lawsuit and she’s clawing back by forcing mandatory testing—also mask use during play. Unlike our neighbors.
Also we have fewer cumulative cases per capita than our neighbors—thanks to zero Covid pursuits over the winter including restaurant shutdowns. We are now catching up to our neighbors on this metric.
Link to their weekly data and modeling slide decks. I think the U-M modeling is ridiculous but a lot of that data is enlightening.
https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98163_98173_105123---,00.html
I live in Michigan and have been tracking our data all year. At this point, my best theory is that the virus is legitimately spreading but it's not anything to worry about (Your CLI vs Positive Test analysis is spot on). My best guess is that ER detections (hospital admission %) are probably the closest thing we have to measuring the infection rate of the general populous. The % positive test rate is inflated by contact tracing / symptomatic testing (most people don't get tested weekly). CLI is only ~1% of all admissions, so the stated hospitalization rate is likely from people that came in for other reasons, which seems like it should be a pretty random sample of the general population.
In-person classes, School sports, and COVID fatigue all mean that previously under-exposed demographics did change behavior after the Christmas holiday. I've had two guys in my department (both about age 30) and my dad (age 55) get sick in this wave. The two (single) guys in my department were both COVID faithful before Christmas and I guess had started to see people in person because it's really not feasible to go a year without seeing anyone ("lockdown" policy isn't sustainable, so effective or not, it's bad long-term policy). There's been a bunch of symptomatic cases in people from my office (all working at home) in the last month. 10x any of the previous waves. I have every anecdotal reason to think there was a legitimate widespread change in infection rate in March.
Best I can figure is the people crossing the Ohio or Indiana state line were a minority for a long time, and Ohio/Indiana have been far more open far longer and the younger demographics in those states were sufficiently exposed in earlier waves. Whatever seasonal stimulus has driven the March wave (also observed in even more restricted Ontario) didn't have the same impact on Ohio / Indiana because actual previous exposure rates are far higher then known "cases." The Michigan southern border counties are actually lighter then their immediate northern neighbors which might suggest that some regular contact with Indiana/Ohio residents did increase exposure rates and provide better outcomes in this "wave."
The only outlier to that theory is Downriver (Monroe) vs Toledo.
It would be interesting to see the same ratios from neighboring states. Also, is there anything notable in the identical pattern occurring during the winter surge? I guess it does look like ICU C19 occupancy at least rose in lockstep during that time period.
I think this pandemic will go down in history as the time the empirical scientists (with their chaotic measurements) overwhelmed the theoretical scientists with hysterical data. We need the calm pipe-smoking armchair thinkers to get back control. What's the difference between an experimental physicist, a theoretical physicist, and an engineer? The experimental physicist prods nature with a stick to see how it will behave. The theoretical physicist proposes a hypothesis of why nature behaved that way when you prodded it with a stick. The engineer builds a bigger stick.
Happen be in upstate michigan right now. North of Traverse City. Was hoping before I arrived that it would not be masker world. No, it is full-on masker world. Even outside. Very disappointing.
Ct threshold didn't change in MI? I think it changed in Jan for most states, but maybe no MI? i'm still not 100% sure it changed at all. It is so hard to figure out what is going on with Ct levels.
I agree that Michigan is quite an outlier. However, there has been some leak through to Northwest Ohio. You can see it when you look at Region 1 of the Ohio Hospital Association's hospital census data. Region 1 (Northwest Ohio) has experienced a much sharper rise than other regions over the last month or so, like a muted version of what Michigan experienced. https://ohiohospitals.org/covid19data
Chris Godby is a good follow on Twitter for analysis of Ohio's data. https://twitter.com/chgodby
This reminds of when the western wildfires stopped exactly at the US border with Canada. The fires that were supposedly caused by climate change just stopped at the nationally boundary...
My friend, have you looked at Covid cases in Ontario? Michigan borders on Ontario and the Covid cases curve in Ontario is very similar.